Summary
Rue La La and Gilt are online discount retailers offering name-brands at member-only prices. The members-only business model has been around since the company started, in hopes to create exclusivity, FOMO and collect first party data for marketing and personalization. We believe that more new members=more new buyers and that visitors who create accounts have a higher intent to purchase.
Because our data was telling us that our registration rate was declining year over year, the company decided to focus on improving the new member experience. User research was telling us that account creation is a major pain point and they would be highly unlikely to create an account without being able to browse the site first.
We believed we could increase our registration and activation rates by reducing friction and improving the new member experience. We defined and executed a roadmap of new member optimizations for the year which resulted in +23% in registration and +26% in activation (estimated +$15M in annualized demand).
Company
Rue Gilt Groupe
Year
2024
Role
UX/UI
Strategy
Research
The Problem
Because Rue La La and Gilt are members–only experiences, users are not able to browse the site at all until they create an account. The registration gate has an 88% drop off rate. In user studies, users describe this experience to be extremely frustrating.
“I would leave. There are too many other places I can go shop where I don’t have to sign-up.”
So we asked ourselves…
How might we reduce friction in the registration experience?
How might we decouple acquiring first party data from registration?
How might we optimize for mobile (think app first)?
How might we optimize by acquisition channel?
How might we help users better understand our brand and value props?
The Approach
In Q1 of 2024, RGG introduced a new team framework: The KSP (Key Strategic Priority). Key players from around the organization were elected to be on teams focused on the companies key priorities. Because of the 48% decline YoY in registration rate, the “New Member Innovation KSP” was this years top priority.
